If We Had 5 More Minutes

The Murderer Is In This Room Pt. Eight

Archie

Two Little Soldier Boys sitting in the sun; One got frizzled up and then there was One.

      The moment the game began he wanted to leave, the key party nor any of Cheryl's highschools parties ever went well. He thought himself to be above the shenanigans and decided to go look for Betty to see if she wanted to leave as well. Instead he ran into Jughead, and thought back to the envelope he’d gotten the other day. He’d been trying to ignore it and avoid Jughead at all cost, this wasn’t going to be an exception, so when he saw Jughead wave at him, he acted as if he hadn’t seen him and moved on. He continued his search for Betty, until he heard the familiar voice call after him, and he sighed to himself.

“Hey Arch. Long time no see, thought maybe we could catch up?” Jughead asks as he tries to strike small talk. However Archie refuses to meet Jughead's eyes, and instead tries to brush past him.

“Hey Archie everything alright?” Jughead asks, now concerned for his former best friend.

“Yeah Jughead, everything’s good I’m just looking for Betty.” He responds defensively and brushes past Jughead like it was nothing. He didn’t even bother looking back at Jughead, he just wanted to leave as quickly as possible, preferably with Betty. He sees Kevin storming out of one of the rooms, and then catches Betty trying to go after him, but Archie quickly intervenes.

“Hey everything alright?” He asked her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder, looking at her concerned.

“Yeah, Arch, everything's fine.” Betty dismissed and wrapped her arms around his neck looking up at him. However Archie backed away and scoffed, realizing what she was deflecting him.

“Kevin looked upset, what were you guys talking about?” Archie asked again, not wanting to dismiss this conversation. Betty rolled her eyes and looked around the hallway, obviously thinking of what to say.

“What are you not telling me Betty, something else is going on isn’t, other than this stupid game.” Archie asked, seeing that if he wanted an actual answer he would have to push for it. She sighed in defeat and looked around the hallway before dragging Archie in the room closing the door behind them.

“Betty what’s going on?” Archie asked, confused.

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Yeah I guess.” Archie responded, and got a look from Betty in response. “Yes. I can keep a secret.”

“Jughead, Cheryl, Toni and I came up with this to try and see who’s sending all the things we’ve been receiving in the mail lately-”

“This entire thing is a cover up?” Archie scoffed, really wanting to leave now. “What happened to leaving the FBI and everything else behind us, why can’t you just let this go?” Archie finished, he didn’t want to investigate this or discuss it, he simply wanted to ignore it and let it fade out.

“Archie someone is terrorizing the town.”

“Terrorizing? Betty, it's a couple harmless books and envelopes, it's probably a prank.”
“Archie-”

“No, Betty, you need to drop this.” Archie states, raising his voice slightly, but then sees the way Betty is staring at him with a twisted expression.

“Look it's just, we are going to get married soon, and start a family, and I don’t want this kind of thing screwing that up.” Archie said as he reached for Betty’s hands, but she slowly retracted them, and Archie sighed.

“You're having second thoughts, aren't you, what, you don’t want to marry me?”

“It’s not that, Arch I- I just don’t know if i’ ready for all that yet.” Betty said as she rubbed her hands down the sides of her pants, obviously nervous.

“Okay that’s fine, we can talk about this, but let’s not do it here in Chery’s cabinets of curiosities.” Archie said, him and Betty chuckling a bit. “We can go home and talk about it.” He said pulling her hand a bit wanting to leave, but instead she pulled away again.

“I’m not leaving Archie.”

“Okay, then I'll see you at the house later?” Archie asked and Betty gave him a small smile confirming it.  Archie left the room, and hustled down the stairs to the living room, giving a small nod to Reggie before leaving.